Alex M. Presents...

[Chaz de Coventina]

Today I have been granted the esteemed privilege of sharing with you all a top-secret project from a budding artist that has taken a lot of time and effort. He is notoriously shy when it comes to sharing things like this but I've managed to convince him that it's very much worth passing on, especially to a group of people who will appreciate it, and after a little persuasion he's decided that it's alright to preview. ;)

Alex (my oldest son) has a passionate interest in all things Lego. He can spend hours building incredible worlds and crafting stories to go with them which often span weeks and months and morph into astonishingly complex myths. He really has an incredible imagination and it's an awesome thing to watch his various creations progress.

We've been staying at my brother's place in Canada and because of the radical climate change, the boys have been finding ways to keep themselves occupied inside the house. Thankfully Ally's love of Lego is shared by his cousins and he's had bins and bins of the stuff to keep him occupied. I assumed that all the time he's spent setting up little clusters of scenes was simply the arc of a story being played out.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/legomess.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/soldiers.jpg


It all looked to be fairly routine, if a bit of an explosion. But then some rather familiar layouts started to appear...


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/barracks.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/clonesdefeated.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/chewie.jpg


(I'm meant to point out that this one is hand-painted and took a lot of time to get right. :))

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/handpainted.jpg

The fact that my brother's MacBook Pro kept going missing was taken as a completely unrelated mystery. And then Alex showed up with it earlier and said, in that nonchalantly shy way that appears whenever he's about to show me something he's proud of, "Hey, Mom, watch this."

(Of course, before I could watch it I was warned that it WASN'T FINISHED and that he'd MESSED UP and that it was a ROUGH DRAFT. ;))

And so below are the first attempts of Ally Boy at trying his hand at stop animation. :D


<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://v7.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=2r5t094&s=7" height="420" width="440">
Original Video (http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2r5t094&s=7) - More videos at TinyPic (http://tinypic.com)

[Chaz de Coventina]

After he'd decided it was cool to share that with everyone here, he told me that if I wanted to I could also include some "behind the scenes" footage of his tank. He's very proud of it - and rightly so! :)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/proudally.jpg



<embed width="440" height="420" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://v7.tinypic.com/player.swf?file=qsmmxf&s=7"><br><font size="1"><a href="http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=qsmmxf&s=7">Original Video</a> - More videos at <a href="http://tinypic.com">TinyPic</a></font>

[Lilaena De'Ville]

As a Lego nerd I have to say -

This is completely awesome! Really great job on the animation, Alex. I can't wait to see the finished products if the not finished ones are this good. :)

I could never make custom stuff out of my Legos, I always just followed the directions. :p So I'm a little jealous of your talent! That tank is really good.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Mad lego skillz!

I like the custom paint job especially ;)

[Aidan Fox]

But what happens next?!

Fantastic job! It looks like serious thought has gone into how you're framing your shots and establishing continuity from one to the other - that's some legitimate film technique there. I'm also loving the layers of blaster sound effects in the big battle between the clones and the droids. That's what you call a wall of sound. :)

Keep it up, I'd love to see more!

[Kala'ndryl Ryj]

Wow!!! That's just incredible and a new level of awesome :)

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

This is just plain awesome!! That custom painted fig is the best :D

Your boy is talented and so amazingly creative!

[Peter McCoy]

Love it! I especially like the detail on that green jeep. I simply don't have enough Lego to design my own stuff to that extent but I'd love to.

If he's ever looking for inspiration, tell him to check out http://www.lugnet.com/~1763/faction for some really cool space stuff - ships, vehicles etc. He may very well know the place already, along with the MOC website.

[Tom Harriman]

Everyone else has said 'awesome' so far, but that's pretty much the only word for it! :D

As has been said already, it's obvious that a lot of thought and understanding went into this: especially in the battle scene with the clones and droids at the end. There's lots of fast cuts, lots to see in each shot, and lots of layered sounds to build it all up... really good, solid film making techniques there.

And bonus points for the custom paint job on Captain Rex! I've never been brave enough to go anywhere near my Lego with a paintbrush...

[Tear]

I dunno if anyone's pointed this out yet but he does a great job doing the clone troopers voice and accent. Future Steven Spielberg in the making!

[Polly Smithson]

I meant to reply to this ages ago:

Alex has just been completely floored by the responses (blushin' like a boss) and thrown himself into completing the project with a focus that is alarming. I wish he cared this much about schoolwork! Thanks all for your comments, he's so stoked that people would even watch let alone leave input. :D